Rosewood, Ebony and CITES.
/ Monday, 07 August 2017

On 2nd January 2017, countries around the world came together to sign a new CITES declaration which places restrictions on the use of all types of Dalbergia species Rosewood.

Therefore, during 2017 Faith Guitars are phasing out production of all guitar fittings (Fingerboards, bridges, headplates etc) made of Rosewood. There are still many guitars in music stores across the world which use rosewood for these fittings, and that’s not a problem. However, to make life easier in the future, 99% of Faith guitars manufactured in 2017 will replace rosewood fittings with Indonesian Ebony fittings.

The ebony from Indonesia is much more widely grained and brown-ish in colour than the solid-black Indian Ebony, and as ever, it is sourced locally and responsibly by our workshops in Indonesia.

Historically, Nomad and Naked models had rosewood fingerboards, bridges and headplates, but 2017 manufactured models will replace this with Ebony. It will look very similar however, due to the nature of Indonesian timbers. Some Pro models (Natural, Trembesi, All-Mahogany, Classic Burst) used Rosewood for the edge binding. Again, this will be replaced with Ebony on 2017 manufactured models. NB: Faith HiGloss series will continue to use Indonesian Rosewood for the back and sides of the instruments, as this is a primary feature of these guitars.

As this change in timber legislation was unexpectedly sprung upon the guitar industry just two months before coming into force, existing manufacturing schedules had to be continued. It’s therefore worth noting that many guitars in stores, at the time of writing (August 2017), would have been manufactured in 2016. This is why web-listing specifications for most models have not yet been changed.

So, during 2017 there will be a cross-over of instruments using Rosewood and Ebony, but as a rule of thumb, anything with a 2017 serial number (starting FS3/17… or FS3Z/17) will be using Ebony instead of Rosewood. You can read more about our serial number structure here.

So, should you be worried? No. For 99% of musicians, there is really no impact. Rosewood is not illegal. It is just more tightly regulated.